Small business owners voice support for sick-time ordinance in St. Paul

  At a press conference today, small business owners in St. Paul said passing a citywide sick-time ordinance is the right thing to do – not only for the health of their workers, but also the health of their bottom lines. Providing employees with earned sick and safe time makes them less likely to jump […]

Protesters to Best Buy: ‘Get out of the way so we can have justice’

  RICHFIELD – Inside and outside of Best Buy’s annual shareholders meeting today, Minnesotans called on the corporation to stop using its political clout to block policies that improve working families’ lives. That includes proposed legislation in Minnesota that would provide workers and their families with the stability and security they need to ensure a […]

Airport workers confront Delta CEO during Minneapolis luncheon

Three workers interrupted Delta CEO Richard Anderson’s speech before a Chamber of Commerce luncheon Tuesday in Minneapolis. They questioned why Anderson’s salary increased to over $14 million last year, while workers who assist Delta passengers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport struggle to make ends meet. “Mr. Anderson, Delta is making record profits, yet wheelchair agents […]

Education Summit leaves teachers, parents on the outside looking in

Parents, students and other activists demonstrated this morning outside a hotel downtown St. Paul, site of a business-backed conference on education reform that featured Michelle Rhee, a prominent national voice for weakening the influence of teachers and their unions. Not surprisingly, presenters at the Education Summit, sponsored by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, did not […]

St. Paul unions urged public boycott of ‘Nazi-made’ goods 75 years ago

Three years before the attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the U.S. into World War II, American union members declared economic war on Nazi Germany. Unions in St. Paul scrambled in December 1938 to coordinate a local boycott of German goods after American Federation of Labor President William Green, speaking to a nationwide audience on […]

Time is now, marchers say, for House to pass immigration reform

Supporters of comprehensive immigration reform clogged the streets of downtown Minneapolis today, joining a “National Day of Action for Dignity and Respect” and amplifying the call for Congress to fix the nation’s broken immigration system. More than 1,000 people – a crowd heavy on families and children – marched from the Basilica of St. Mary […]

State’s transportation needs can’t wait, coalition warns

Support for transportation and transit investments among state lawmakers this session appears lukewarm at best, and that baffles Rep. Alice Hausman. “With all the grumbling and complaining about roads and potholes, you wouldn’t think funding transportation would be this hard,” the DFLer from St. Paul said. Hausman, who chairs the House Capital Investment Committee, joined […]

The economic debate hasn’t changed much in 25 years

Business owners say Minnesota’s economic climate is poor, urging lower tax rates and steep cuts to government spending. Union leaders say Minnesota owes its high quality of life to public investments in education and infrastructure that are a catalyst for economic growth. That’s the debate likely to take place when state lawmakers return to the […]